


something wretched and divine

by everywordnotsaid



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Brief self harm, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, The Crusades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everywordnotsaid/pseuds/everywordnotsaid
Summary: Yusuf dies, and then he dies again. He kills, and then he kills again. And somewhere, between the dying and the living, he falls in love. Or at least something close to it.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 10
Kudos: 169





	something wretched and divine

**Author's Note:**

> I have never done so much research for a fic before hot damn. This fandom is really gonna make early medieval scholars of us all. Once again, I apologize in advance for any historical/linguistic inaccuracies. This could be read as a loose sequel to my other story ya'aburnee (bury me).

The first time Yusuf dies he is not yet 36 years old. He dies in a field of holy death, at the base of the walls of Jerusalem. He dies upon the sword of a Christian man with golden hair and eyes the color of the _Bahr al-Maghrib_ , and he dies with his dagger in his enemy’s throat. Yusuf dies, and then he wakes up.

When he opens his eyes it is not too the flowing springs and rivers or lush green gardens of _jannah_ , and there are no angels to be found welcoming him to paradise. Instead he wakes to the smell of death and a burnt orange sky. He looks to his chest and finds the ragged bloody hole in his armor where the Frank’s sword tore through him but the skin underneath is as smooth and unblemished as the day he was born. The body of the man who killed him is gone, and Yusuf rolls, faltering, to his knees and empties his stomach into the sand. 

_Mubarakat maratayn_ his brothers call him when he returns to the city, twice blessed, and they look at him with fear and awe in their eyes. Yusuf is not so sure. He doesn’t know if this is truly a blessing from Allah or a punishment, but whatever it is it’s a second chance and he is not stupid enough to be ungrateful.

For a month the siege continues. Outside the Frank’s wait, slowly succumbing too starvation and thirst, repelled by the poisoned wells and the brutal heat of the desert. For a month Yusuf dreams. 

He dreams of straw yellow hair and eyes like ocean glass, dreams of a thirst so great he wakes with a parched mouth and a hunger that turns his stomach to knots. He dreams of the dead Frank. Every night he closes his eyes and sees the dim glow of a fire, dull sand-swept armor, and the low lilting tones of Genoese hums in the background. He wonders if, somewhere, the man dreams of him too. 

It begins to haunt him, the face of this Frank. He does not sleep, for fear of it, spends his nights wandering along the ramparts of the city walls, looking out across the desert where a thousand campfires blink like fireflies in the darkness. The dreams follow him into his waking hours anyways, where exhaustion steeps the color from his vision till all the world hovers in shades of grey. A part of him begins to wonder if he is truly alive, or if he is caught in some strange hell, doomed to be forever hounded by the ghosts of the lives he has taken. If this is some divine punishment for a sin he is not sure he has committed.

So he throws himself into his worship, seeking for answers in the feeling of his forehead against his prayer rug, the words he utters to himself in the pre-dawn light of _fajr_ and the familiar motions of _rak’ah_. Why he asks, why does he still live when so many of his people are dead? Why has he been given this blessing, or perhaps this curse. There is no answer though, at least not one Yusuf understands, and when he prays, he can feel God slipping through his fingers, white-hot in his indifference. 

One night he takes a knife and runs it across the fleshy palm of his hand, watches red swell and bead behind it like pomegranate seeds. When he wipes away the blood it is to see the skin of his palm, smooth and whole and unscarred. He shakes then, trembles with something that is not quite fear and not quite awe. 

The next night he dreams of sand beneath bare feet, and a mountain top overlooking the valley in which Jerusalem is nestled like a pearl. He awakes with a dry mouth and sweat drying cool in the small of his back. He can feel something coming, like the static that fills the air before a storm, like a reckoning. The whole city feels humid with it, fear clinging to each corner and street like rain that has not yet fallen. 

One month and one day since Yusuf died and lived again, the crusaders return, and this time they come with great towers of wood, and an iron clad battering ram. This time they bring with them war. The storm breaks, and it rains fire down upon them. 

All along the ramparts the mangonels are wheeled out as the city prepares for the oncoming wave, warning calls rising like tolling bells. Yusuf takes his scimitar in hand, and with a last prayer makes his way to the gates. The weight of the weapon in his hand is now as familiar as charcoal or stylus, and as Yusuf charges towards the wall of soldiers that approach, sweeping towards him like a white-crested wave, he thinks perhaps this is why Allah has given him this endless death. Perhaps this is the answer he has been seeking. 

He dives into the battle outside the walls like he does not mean to return from it, and perhaps he does not. Perhaps this is simply a debt he still owes. He has a feeling, deep inside him somewhere, that this desert was meant to be his grave. And Yusuf may be many things but he is a faithful man, and an honorable one, and he does not shirk his debts. If this is to be his last stand, his final cry, then he will make it a good one. There is a strange feeling of release that comes to him, one that tastes almost of freedom. It lasts till he glimpses straw-gold hair out of the corner of his eye.

Their gazes lock, and Yusuf knows in an instant, knows with a certainty that frightens him, that this is the man he killed a month ago. The man who killed him. He recognizes his face from the dreams that have haunted him every night since. He sees the moment the other man recognizes it too, watches as he mouths the word _demone_ , eyes rounded in fear and shock. They are pulled to each other like moths to a flame, even through the madness around them they draw closer and closer. Yusuf slays three men without seeing their faces, never looking away from the ghost. 

When their blades finally touch Yusuf must admit this strange white devil is a skilled fighter. They spin together in a dance that can only end one way, each pushing forward and then retreating in a violent give and take. The second time Yusuf dies he’s close enough to the other man that he can see the sunburn across the bridge of his nose and cheeks, the skin already red and peeling in the relentless heat of the desert. Can see the faintest hint of a scar at the corner of his mouth, just beneath his bottom lip. For a second they are caught there, still amidst the chaos around them with blades locked, and there’s a strange sort of peace that settles on the moment. Then there’s a sharp bloom of pain in Yusuf’s side, and he looks down to see a dagger in his stomach, buried to the hilt in his flesh. 

The Frank rips the knife out, blood spraying in a crimson arc, splattering wet and heavy to the sand beneath their feet. Yusuf stumbles a little, gasping, and he can already tell it is a fatal wound. But he is not dead yet and so he gathers himself and finds his feet and puts his blade through the stranger’s chest. They die there, together, and their blood shimmers like garnets against they unforgiving steel of their weapons. 

And then, again they wake. The sun still shines and the battle still rages and the blood is not yet dry on the ground or in their clothes. Yusuf can feel the skin and muscle of his wound knitting itself back together, like his younger sister sewing shut the hole he’d torn in his favorite tunic. At his side he hears a low groan and turns his head to see the crusader’s eyes flicker open to meet his. As soon as he sees him he gasps, scrabbling away across the dust, hand already reaching for his sword. 

“ _Demone_ ,” He whispers again in horror. “ _Perché mi perseguiti_?”

Yusuf nearly laughs, something desperate and vicious bubbling in his throat. And even as his fingers close around the hilt of his scimitar, he wonders who exactly is haunting who. Then they both stumble to their feet, driven by something closer to animal instinct then any rational thought, and throw themselves at each other once more. Again and again they kill, and again and again they awake on the battlefield while around them the world crumbles. 

The light fades, sun sinking below the city, and still they fight. Yusuf loses count of how many times he dies, by blade or spear or sometimes by the other mans hands, visceral and intimate around his neck, digging into the soft skin of his throat. He dies and he kills in an endless cycle, until the rest of the world fades away and all he can see and smell and feel is this foreigner in a foreign land. They fight till the sun rises again, and yet neither of them stay dead. 

There is something terribly intimate about killing someone, Yusuf realizes. To hold their life in your hands and extinguish it, watch the fire drain out of their eyes. And he has killed the Frank so many times, knows the way that pain looks on his face, knows his anger and grief and fear. He finds himself wondering, just for a moment, what he looks like when he smiles. The thought is torn from his mind as his opponent’s blade finds it’s way deep into the meat of his shoulder. With a growl Yusuf reaches up and tears it free, ignoring the way the blade cuts into his palm. 

The Frank falters at the motion, thrown off balance, and Yusuf raises his blade to deliver the final blow. Before he can though the man stumbles, eyes widening as the tip of a spear sprouts from the center of his chest, blood blooming in the white cloth of his tunic like a pomegranate flower. Behind him stands an Egyptian soldier, face spattered with dirt and gore, lips pulled back in a snarl. With a single twisting motion he rips the spear out of the Frank’s chest, leaving behind a gaping hole. Yusuf kills him before he even has time to think, and then feels guilt rise in his throat as realizes what he has done. That soldier had been his ally, his brother. And Yusuf had killed him, for what? 

In front of him the Frank has fallen, sprawled on his back in the battlefield. His eyes are still open, blinking uncomprehendingly at the sky above him, and there’s red at his mouth, dripping down his chin and neck. Yusuf knows he’s dying without even looking at the wound. It’s the first time either of them has died at the hands of another, and he’s suddenly filled with a cavernous yawning fear that swells in his heart unbidden. What if the man is truly dead this time, what if Yusuf is left alone in this hell? He has killed him so many times, but now, in this moment, he realizes he does not truly want him to die anymore, and the knowledge is like lightning in his bones. 

Slowly, Yusuf slides his dagger out from where it hangs at his hip, grasps the filigreed hilt tight into his hands, the jeweled designs digging into the skin of his palm. He focuses on the small hurt of it, the way he can feel it hot and sharp and bright cutting though the smell of blood and fear around him. Focuses on the man’s clear blue-green eyes, bright with terror and agony, below him. He remembers when his mother had pressed this dagger into his hand in _al-mahdiyya_ so long ago. _Come back_ , she’d said, and her face had been calm and steady but there was fear in her eyes. _Come back to us_. 

For so long Yusuf had held on to that, clinging to it in the darkest moments of war. The thought of returning, back to his mother’s fresh baked bread and the wheeling seagulls above the port and the sugar sweet taste of dates still warm from the sun. He knows now it’s an impossible dream. He cannot die, but neither can he truly live. Any home is lost to him. All that is left is this, the war and the death and the man on the ground in front of him. The only truth Yusuf understands anymore is that he will die and he will live again, and that this man, tied to him by blood and fate, will be there when he first draws breath. 

Stepping forward he reaches down, taking the Christian’s hands in his own, one at a time, and gently wraps his fingers around the hilt of the dagger. He has touched him before, but never so softly, never with this much kindness. His skin is not smooth, worn hard and calloused by war, but he is warm and he is human and Yusuf nearly weeps from it. It has been so long since he has touched someone with no intent to kill, so long since someone held him gently. 

Kneeling he lifts their interlocked hands, presses the point of his blade above his heart. The other man doesn’t speak, blood still dripping down his chin and staining his mouth a brilliant ruby red, but confusion shadows the agony in his face. Yusuf looks down at him, meeting his gaze, and does not look away. Slowly, slowly, he starts to press the blade deeper, past cloth and leather armor, and finally through his skin. 

It hurts, sharp and blinding and overwhelming, and Yusuf’s hands stutter for a second but he grits his teeth and continues. Even after so many deaths, pain is still pain, but Yusuf has grown familiar with it now. Like holding the hand of an old friend, or a tasting the lips of a long lost lover. It opens his arms to him and he embraces it as the knife slides deeper into his chest, cutting through flesh and sinew, moving inexorably inwards. 

“ _Perché_?”

The man rasps, as blood bubbles to his lips. There is still confusion in his eyes, but also a strange sort of wonder, like he is just now discovering something beautiful and impossible. It makes Yusuf’s stomach clench and he says nothing in reply because he does not know the answer. Or perhaps that’s not true, perhaps he does know, and he is simply of afraid of it. 

Yusuf feels it the moment the dagger enters his heart, the pain building till it’s almost closer to pleasure, and it stammers and falters in his chest like a wounded bird. His knees tremble and collapse beneath him, and he falls, weightless and boneless on top of his enemy, his demon, his savior. Yusuf’s face is tucked in the crook of the man’s shoulder, so close he can feel the unsteady shallow huffs of his dying gasps against the shell of his ear. Their hands, intertwined, are caught between their bodies. Around them the battle still rages, men still fight and bleed and perish on the altar of a god Yusuf is no longer sure he believes in.

In this moment they are nothing, simply two dying soldiers among a thousand, casualties of a war that was started long before Yusuf. _Milites_ in a never-ending _bellum sacrum_. And, Yusuf finds, as he takes his final breaths, he does not care anymore. Not about any of it, not the holy city, not his God, not this endless bloodshed. He lived for it and he has killed for it and now he has given his life for it too, and he thinks that is more then any one man should be expected to offer. The last thing he feels before he dies is calloused fingers tightening around his. 

That is the last time the other man kills Yusuf, but it is not the last time he dies. 

When they wake again the battle is over, the desert around them empty except for the corpses of a thousand men and horses. The man climbs to his feet, but he doesn’t look at Yusuf, eyes fixed over his shoulder. 

“ _Mio dio_ ,” He breathes in his native tongue, reverence and horror warring in his voice, “ _I muri sono caduti_.”

Yusuf spins. In front of him Jerusalem burns, men like ants swarm up the siege towers and into the ramparts of the city. From inside the walls he can hear distant screams, the rally calls of victory. Something in him fractures, then, and he sinks to his knees, feeling the strength that has pulled him this far ebb out of his reach. Everything he has fought for, everything he has died for again and again and again, is gone. And Yusuf with it. 

He doesn’t know how long they wait there, together, watching as smoke begins to rise from inside the gates. Long enough that the screams and echoes of metal against metal begin to fade into nothingness. Long enough for Yusuf to know that he is truly lost. Jerusalem has fallen, there is nothing left for him here in the wreckage of his holy city but the slaughtered bodies of his brothers. Above the walls a stained flag rises, the vicious crimson cross of the Christians emblazoned across its ragged expanse. Behind it the sky weeps blood, reds and gold smeared across the horizon in a way that would be beautiful if Yusuf’s heart was not breaking. 

“It is the will of God,”

The Christian says, in broken _sabir_. Almost apologetic, almost unsure. The words spark something in Yusuf’s chest and he pushes himself to his feet, turning on the man. 

“You think this,” He spits in the ragged, accented Ligurian he learned from working the sea ports of the Maghreb, selling his families goods to the Genoans before they decided they were on opposite sides of a war. There is rage now, rising in his throat like blood, like bile, and he gestures wildly to the smoldering remains of the battle. To the gore splashed across the ramparts and the thick oily smoke rising from the city and the smell of flesh baking in the endless desert heat, “You think any of this is God’s will? And if it is, what kind of god do you worship that claims this terror in his name?”

The man says nothing, but his eyes are sad. Yusuf scoffs, shaking his head. 

“You have no answer, do you. There is no answer for this.”

He turns away then, looking up at the broken walls of the city he has bled to protect. He cannot die, but perhaps he can bring terror to the hearts of those who would desecrate what is not theirs to claim. As if he can guess what Yusuf is thinking the man points to the city, to the flag now rising above it.

“They will kill you. And when they realize you cannot die they will make you suffer for it.”

The sentence is slow and awkward, the Berber and Greek words slipping off his tongue heavily. It is obvious the language is unfamiliar too him, and he trips his way through the sentence. Yusuf laughs, bitter and fragmented. Once that thought would have frightened him, but not anymore.

“And what does it matter?”

He replies, and he thinks maybe he means, _I should end here too_. So what if he must die a hundred times more to avenge this loss. Perhaps that can be his final sacrifice, and Allah will release him from this torment to take his place among his ancestors. The man’s face softens, now with pity exactly, but perhaps with understanding. The Christian reaches out his hand then, let’s it hang in the still air between them. 

“There-there must be a reason we are still here.” He says, like he’s searching for the right words. “There must be a reason that God has seen fit to bring us together, do you not think?”

Yusuf hesitates, because of course he has wondered this. He killed a man for this stranger, his _enemy_ , without even knowing his name. He has felt his dying breaths against his neck, has known him more intimately then any lover or friend. 

“There is no place for either of us here anymore.”

He continues, gently, with a sort of infinite sadness that makes him seem very old. And there is such kindness in his eyes that for a moment Yusuf cannot breathe. His hand is open, fingers outstretched, and somehow Yusuf knows if he reaches out now there is no taking it back. 

“My name is Nicolò.” The man says, “Nicolò di Genova”

And it’s almost a plea. Slowly, haltingly, Yusuf reaches out and takes his offering of peace. He thinks about how this hand has touched him before, thinks about fingers around his neck and the feel of rough skin against his palms as their blood mixed on the ground. He thinks about violence, or maybe just the absence of it. The way his hand was gentle inside of Yusuf’s as they died.

“Yusuf.” 

He replies. And it feels like a betrayal, it feels like the end of something. It feels like, perhaps, a beginning. 

“Yusuf,”

Nicolò repeats, carefully turning the word over, his Genoese accent coloring it unfamiliar and new. Yusuf shivers, to hear his name in this man’s mouth, like he has given a part of himself away. 

“It is a beautiful name.”

Nicolò says, as his lips curve upwards into a smile and it is like the sun, blinding and consuming and brilliant. Dully, Yusuf thinks Nicolò’s face is more suited to joy then to death. 

Together they turn and walk away from the burning city and the death inside it, together they walk towards something new. 

**Author's Note:**

> bahr-al-maghrib - Western Sea (The Mediterranean) 
> 
> Mubarakat maratayn - twice blessed
> 
> Demone -demon 
> 
> Perché mi perseguiti - why do you haunt me
> 
> Perché - why
> 
> Mio dio, I muri sono caduti - my god, the walls have fallen


End file.
